Have another man meet him at the door.
Strew your coffeetable with current issues of bridal magazines. Mark a few pages with paper clips or bent corners.
Fill your home with cats. Borrow from friends if you need to. Say good-bye to every single one before leaving.
Bring a Walkman.
Apologize for not bathing.
Before leaving ask, "do you mind if we share needles?"
Offer your date a selection of appetizers artfully arranged on a platter -- Little Debbie Smack Cakes, pink and white Hostess Snowballs, bright orange Circus Peanuts, anchovies, and squares of bologna and American cheese on white bread speared with stuffed olives.
Watch childbirth movies before you leave. Preferably together.
Ask him for a second date before you leave the house.
Bring your mother along.
Bring a child along.
Incest jokes
Wear a pager, after having arranged to be beeped every 20 minutes.
Disagree with everything he says. Respond to everything he says with "Oh, isn't that nice," and redirect the conversation to yourself.
Before he shows up, empty a bottle of expectorant, wash it out, fill it with water and stash it in your purse. Remove it periodically throughout the evening and take a swig or two with great flourish.
Arrange to accidentally run into friends at every stop of the way. Ask them point blank whether they'd spend the rest of the evening with him if they were you. Leave with them if you need to.
Talk about all the things your old boyfriends did that drove you crazy. Work in as many of your date's habits as possible.
Bark at men passing by.
Talk about all the people you know who've slept with him.
Disclose embarrassing details of how other men have disappointed you sexually. Laugh mercilessly.
Drool.
Call him by the wrong name, even after he corrects you.
Call him by several different wrong names.
At the theater...
Engage the person next to you in conversation.
Hold hands with the person next to you.
At the restaurant...
Eye the waiter from head to toe, with long pauses at places just below your eye level.
Help yourself to food from his plate without asking.
Excuse yourself. Go to the restroom and rub brown eye shadow into the circles of your eyes. Return to table and act naturally. Best if you do this several times, applying increasingly darker coats.
- mostly excerpted from "101 Ways to Sabatage Your Date," from Ladies Fetish and Taboo Society, a nifty zine available for $3 from P.O. Box 542327, Houston, TX 77254-2327.